MITCH HORUCY
Assistant Sports Editor
In what seemed like the inevitable outcome, Stefon Diggs has been traded from the Buffalo Bills.
Diggs heads down south and joins the young, but exciting Houston Texans.
The Bills are sending Diggs, a 2025 fifth-round pick and a 2024-sixth round pick.
In return, the Bills are getting a 2025 second-round pick from the Texans, which was originally the Vikings’ pick.
As much as a groundbreaking move as this is, I think it was the right thing for the Bills to do.
In trading Diggs before June 1, the Bills will take on about $30 million in dead cap.
While this is a big number, it’s only $3 million more than what his cap hit would’ve been had he been on the team this season.
Starting in the 2025 season, the Bills will save money from trading Diggs.
They’ll save $5 million in 2025, $15 million in 2026 and $18 million in 2027, and then he is off the books.
Since Diggs is gone, that leaves a spot open for a top receiver on the Bills roster.
The team signed Curtis Samuel in the offseason, who I believe will be a good addition to the team but can’t be the top wideout.
In the 2022 and 2023 seasons, Samuel lined up in the slot 74% of the time.
Similarly, breakout wideout Khalil Shakir played from the slot in 69% of his snaps this past season.
Diggs was an outside receiver on 51.9% of snaps this past season.
With free agency past its starting point and most of the top targets gone, the Bills will look toward the draft to fill Diggs’ shoes.
There’s many different routes the Bills could go when doing this, but there’s one in particular I think is the best option.
The options are trading up, staying put at pick 28 or even trading back.
Trading up is the best thing the Bills can do in this situation.
This incoming wide receiver class is historically good at the top, and has tons of talent outside of the top three guys.
The three guys at the top are Marvin Harrison, Jr., Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze.
Harrison, Jr., otherwise known as “MHJ”, is the clear cut top guy, and the best receiver prospect possibly in NFL history in my opinion.
Nabers and Odunze would be the first receivers off the board in most other drafts, but they happen to all be in the draft together.
MHJ is projected in the top four of the draft in most mocks, so it would take a lot to trade up and select him.
Odunze and Nabers are projected anywhere from picks six or seven, all the way up to the mid teens.
Trading up and selecting one of them if they happen to slip in the draft is more likely in my opinion.
A trade I keep looking at due to the similarities of the situation is the Falcons trading up in the 2011 draft to select Julio Jones.
After a 13-3 season which ended in the divisional round, the Falcons made a huge move to draft future All-Pro Julio Jones.
The Falcons still had All-Pro wideout Roddy White, but chose to move up and make the pick.
The trade was:
- Falcons received:
- Sixth overall pick
- Browns received:
- 27th overall pick
- Second-round pick, 59th overall
- Fourth-round pick, 124th overall
- 2012 first-round pick
- 2012 fourth-round pick
In this year’s draft, if the Bills wanted to trade up and select MHJ, they could make a trade with the Arizona Cardinals for the fourth overall pick.
That trade might look something like this:
- Bills receive:
- Fourth overall pick
- Cardinals receive:
- 28th overall pick
- Second-round pick, 60th overall
- Fourth-round pick, 128th overall
- 2025 first-round pick
- 2025 second-round pick
Outside of the first pick, the top of the draft is still very up in the air in terms of who’s going to go where.
This could mean we won’t see the Bills make a move until draft day, or even during the draft depending on how the first few picks go.
As far as what this means for the Texans, I can see why they made the move, but I’m not sure if I’m completely on board.
While I still think Diggs can be a top wide receiver, I’m not sure the Texans need that.
Nico Collins had a breakout year with Stroud, finishing with 80 receptions for 1,297 yards and eight touchdowns.
Collins also is entering his final year of his incredibly cheap rookie deal and is due for an extension which won’t be very cheap.
They also have second-year wideout Tank Dell returning from injury who finished the year with 47 catches, 709 yards and seven touchdowns in 11 games after breaking his fibula in week 13.
Diggs has a $19 million cap hit with the Texans this year, but after this season, there is no dead money attached to him so they could cut him.
I think he will be there longer, but this could technically just be a one year rental for the Texans.
Most Bills fans, including myself will probably have mixed emotions about this trade until the season gets underway and we see what the team does in the draft.
With that being said, I think it was a move that had to be done as the Bills continue to make their team younger.